Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that details various aspects of providing and handling high-speed data transfer using cable TV (CATV) systems that employ coaxial cabling as a medium of transmission. DOCSIS is followed by many cable television operators to provide Internet access over existing proprietary cable system infrastructure. Further, the DOCSIS standard allows for many variations within systems for accomplishing data communications so long as the standard is met. As a result, many devices may employ vastly different mechanisms and algorithms for accomplishing data communication all within the standards of DOCSIS.
A typical system architecture includes two primary components: a cable modem (CM) located at a local location (e.g., a consumer home), and a cable modem termination system (CMTS) located at a central location (e.g., a company's head end facility). A typical CMTS device hosts downstream and upstream ports such that data communication from the CMTS to the CM (downstream) and data communication from the CM to the CMTS (upstream) may be facilitated by the CMTS. Since downstream communication (e.g., delivery of cable content and the like) is typically the more prevalent form of data communications between the CMTS and CM, more transmission resources are dedicated to downstream communications. This results in upstream communication being more bandwidth limited due to its less prevalent nature. As a result, upstream communications tend to have less bandwidth allocated when compared to downstream communications. This is exacerbated by systems that share the same coaxial cable for both upstream and downstream communications. Thus, bandwidth allocated for upstream communications becomes bandwidth limited and therefore efficiency of upstream data communication becomes a laudable goal of any DOCSIS system.